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A song gala under the meaningful title “Great Polish Composers In Song” will take place on March 10, 2018 (6:30 p.m.) at the Polish Aviation Museum in Cracow. We will hear masterpieces of vocal lyrical music in symphonic arrangements.

The evening’s programme will comprise outstanding works for voice and symphony orchestra by some of the most acclaimed composers of Polish music of the 20th and 21st century. The event’s rich repertoire includes Chantefleurs et chantefables by Witold Lutosławski for soprano and orchestra, Tadeusz Baird’s Four Love Sonnets to texts by William Shakespeare for baritone and orchestra, Abschied from Symphony No. 8 “Songs of Transience” by Krzysztof Penderecki, and Henryk Mikołaj Górecki's Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. The audience will hear Krakow Opera’s brilliant soloists: Monika Korybalska, Katarzyna Oleś-Blacha, Adam Szerszeń, and the Orchestra of the Krakow Opera conducted by Tomasz Tokarczyk.

The concert is a part of the “Song –The Theatre of the Word” series, initiated by the Krakow Opera in December 2016 as a cycle of encounters with poetry and music. There is no doubt that this art project, with its theatrical formula, selection of music pieces, and venues, is wholly unprecedented among the repertoires of philharmonics and music theatres in Poland.

More information at: www.opera.krakow.pl 

Musicians from the Czech Republic and Slovakia will perform during a concert on March 9, 2018 at 7.00 p.m. at the National Forum of Music in Wrocław.

From the beginning of its activity, the National Forum of Music is a place of meetings with world-famous artists. The building at Plac Wolności many times hosted great orchestras, such as Wiener Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra or Budapest Festival Orchestra. In the third season of the NFM, it is time for the next guests – Brno Philharmonic orchestra conducted by Case Scaglione.

In the 1870s, less than thirty-year-old Leoš Janáček decided to establish an orchestra in Brno. The composer then worked as a teacher and actively participated in the musical life of the city. Today's Brno Philharmonic, although it was officially founded in the 1950s, refers to traditions initiated by the Czech composer. Janáček's works occupy an important place in the orchestra's repertoire, hence the name of one of the most important Czech composers also appears in the concert program at NFM. The symphonic poem Šumařovo dítě is, unlike Sinfonietta and Taras Bulba, is one of the lesser known orchestral works of the composer. However, it shows the mature style of the artist. The story that inspired the composer to write Šumařovo dítě has its source in the Czech folk tale, more specifically in a poetic piece by Svatopluk Čech, the favorite writer of Janáček. The theme of this touching story is the difficult fate of the violinist and the child who travels with him through the villages. Therefore, in the concertmaster part we will find solo fragments that symbolize the main characters of the tale.

The Brno Philharmonic concert will also include Karol Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto. The soloist part will be played by a violinist of Slovak origin, Milan Pala. The concert was made in just one month and was dedicated to the prominent violinist – Paweł Kochański. In 1932, the virtuoso himself turned to Szymanowski with a request for a new work for his repertoire. He performed the piece (the first and only time) a year later with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of the legendary Grzegorz Fitelberg. The programme of the concert will be completed with Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 2 – probably the most ambitious of all the composer's symphonies.

Tickets information at NFM.

On March 9, 2018 in Cracow Philharmonic there will be a concert of a female duo: German violinist Julia Fischer will play along with Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, the laureate of the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in 2010.

The programme will include: Johannes Brahms – Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in A major, Op. 100; Karol Szymanowski – Mythes, Op. 30; Dmitri Schostakovich – Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 134.

More information about the performers at: www.filharmonia.krakow.pl

On March 8, 2018 at 7.30 p.m. in the Katowice headquarters of the National Polish Radio Orchestra there will be a festive chamber music concert during which the musicians of the NOSPR will present string sextets of two great composers: Andrzej Panufnik and Johannes Brahms.

The idea of string sextet "Trains of Thought" (1987) by Andrzej Panufnik refers to the impression of traveling by train. The pulsating rhythm and staccato articulation in a constant tempo mimic the monotonous clatter of wagons in this piece. However, this is only one layer of composition, the monotony of which is compensated by the composer with the diversity of expressive shades of this ostinato. Dry and rough sounds (molto secco, sul ponticello), after a while become milder, playful (scherzando), then again intrusive and even aggressive (energico, intenso), depending on what is happening in the second layer of the song, more human, which expresses a string of thoughts saturated with emotions – from calm and unhurried to more lively and even violent. In the finale of the composition, the sounds are slowly disappearing, falling away in the distance like a receding train. Onomatopoeic ostinato uses in its structure the sound cell E-F-H in various rotations, transpositions and reflections, both in the harmonic and melodic layer of the work.

Sextetext 2 "Song to the Virgin Mary" is Andrzej Panufnik's first piece composed after marrying Camilla Jessel and settling in Twickenham near London. Since their future home was not yet habitable, the composer worked in a nearby Church Of the Virgin Mary. There he wrote his piece – a simple choral song of prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a work inspired by the composer's memories of "Polish villagers praying fervently in a village church." The melodic line refers here both to Gregorian chant and to Polish folk music, mainly through the use of a pentatonic scale, combined with chords with a double, major-minor backround – with a major and a minor third at the same time. In 1969 Panufnik reviewed the work – he introduced a division into 6 voices, and in 1987 he developed it into a song for a string sextet.

String Sextet in B flat major op. 18 No. 1 by Johannes Brahms will be the last piece to complete the programme of the concert.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.

Additional information at: www.nospr.org.pl

The Chopin University Press publishing house invites you to a meeting devoted to the unique album: "Pergolesi: Stabat Mater / Łukaszewski: Luctus Mariae", which will take place on March 7, 2018 at 5.30 p.m. at the headquarters of the e-Fryderyk Bookshop at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music (2 Okólnik St.).

The 13th-century sequence Stabat Mater, portraying the suffering of Jesus Christ's mother during his crucifixion, has for centuries been an unflagging inspiration for poets, painters and composers. One of them was Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. His work, written for the local community, quickly became the most-published piece in the 18th century and the most popular Stabat Mater of the last three centuries.

In 2010, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Pergolesi's birth, Paweł Łukaszewski composed Luctus Mariae (The Sorrow of Mary) – a work directly referring to the famous cantata of the Baroque master. The piece is based on a contemporary Latin poem with a similar structure and a similar message, written by prof. Jerzy Wojtczak-Szyszkowski. Łukaszewski, while maintaining similarities in terms of construction (13 parts, division into arias and duets), cast and affective side, uses the contemporary style of expression, wider tonality and demanding vocal textures appropriate to his style. Presented recording is the phonographic premiere of the work.

The album was released in a hardback edition, with a large, nearly 60-page booklet, which contains a description of the programme, biographies of performers and texts in Latin, Polish (translation of Stabat Mater by Seweryna Duchińska) and English. The recording was made in the Great Refectory of the castle of Warmian bishops in Lidzbark Warmiński and was co-financed from the grant of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Media patronage: Polish Music Information Centre POLMIC.